Paper Review Rules

For all FedCSIS events, the review process is arranged as the standard single-blind peer-review process:

1. The names of the reviewers are hidden from the authors.
2. The names of the authors are NOT hidden from the reviewers.

Detailed Guidelines

1. Each Event conducts submissions and reviewing as a “track” in the multi-track Conference Management System made available to the events by the FedCSIS organizers.
2. Only papers submitted by the author(s) into the Conference Management System can be subjected to review and potential acceptance.
3. Only full / complete paper submissions have to be refereed. Event Chair(s) have the right to reject incomplete, too short, or otherwise invalid submissions without submitting them for refereeing.
4. Each submitted manuscript should be made available for peer-review to at least three Event Program Committee members and has to receive at least two reviews prior to the acceptance/rejection decision.
5. Event Chair(s) manage the paper submission and reviewing processes according to the best practices and the process defined by the FedCSIS organizers and according to the requirements of IEEE policy and professional ethics:
   • Reviewers treat the contents of papers under review as privileged information, not to be disclosed to others before publication. It is expected that no one with access to a paper under review will make any inappropriate use of the special knowledge available by having that access.
   • Prior to the reviews, reviewers must declare any conflict of interest and opt-out of conducting reviews of manuscripts with conflict of interests.
   • The Conference Management System may help in identifying some conflicts of interest, such as when a reviewer and the authors belong to the same organization, have the same email domains, or cross-reviews are detected (in situations when reviewers (PC members) are also authors of some submitted papers).
   • In the rare case when submission to one’s own event is requested and approved, it is considered inappropriate if Event Chairs, who have insight into the reviewing process, are involved in management of their own submissions. In such case, it is requested that Chairs of another event / FedCSIS Organizers arrange the review process. The Conference Management System will facilitate proper handling of such situations.
6. Event Chair(s) invite PC members based on their high scientific standing and expertise in a given subject area. If a PC member repeatedly misses review submission deadline or submits unprofessional non-informative reviews, we do recommend not to invite that person to be a member of the PC again.
7. A reviewer ought to provide a critical, yet objective review, identify both positive and negative aspects of the manuscript, and should return review promptly. Unjustified biases on the part of the reviewer have no place in peer review. The golden rule is to give a review in the same manner as would be expected by the reviewer for his/her own manuscript.
8. Event Chair(s), as well as PC members, have responsibility of reporting suspected duplicate publication, fraud, plagiarism, or ethical concerns in the research being reviewed.
9. Result of refereeing process can be as follows:
   • paper rejection
   • acceptance as a regular paper
   • acceptance as a short paper
   • acceptance as a position paper
   • acceptance as a dissemination event paper
10. Note that papers, submitted as position papers, cannot be accepted as regular / short papers. However, regular papers can be accepted as short or position papers.